Elementary, my dear Pippin
by Mary-Lou and torturedwriter
Summary: Merry and Pippin start a detective agency in Victorian London. What could possibly go wrong there? (AU by the way)


Elementary, my dear Pippin - Chapter 1 "looking for someone?"  
  
Authors: Mary-Lou & torturedwriter  
  
AU fic inspired by Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan's suggestion that Merry and Pippin should become 'crime fighting Hobbits'. Not sure if this is what they had in mind but it was too good an idea to pass up.  
  
Rating: PG-13 (though there are hints of slash and overuse of the word 'shagging', plus rent boys [don't know what they are? Er.you probably will by the end of this chapter])  
  
"Get out of my pub!"  
  
The cries filled the streets of Victorian London, proving that it was a typical closing time at Galadriel's Legs: Gandalf was storming about, quite literally throwing his patrons out of the door, with a little help from his staff; Gollum was perched on the beer pumps, managing to get his mouth round the bottom to feed his new addiction, alcohol; and Gimli was looking through the till and wondering just how much he could get away with stealing this time.  
  
Into this scene of Mitchell-like domestic bliss walked Merry and Pippin, looking even more pleased with themselves than they had since that time they had managed to fit sixteen breakfasts into one morning (still leaving room for second breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, supper and, of course, afternoon tea). However, they refused to say just why they were so happy until everyone else had turned up.  
  
They didn't have to wait very long: Frodo and Sam entered, Sam keeping a watchful eye over Frodo and, more importantly, Gollum. They were followed by Aragorn and Legolas, who were not so much trying to avoid looking like a couple as arguing in a way that only couples of several millennia can.  
  
"Admit it, you think I can't take care of myself! Just because I'm pretty I'm instantly weak!" Legolas was raging; everyone steered clear of a furious Elf, especially if that Elf still tended to carry his knives beneath his clothes. The bow and arrow had to be left home, as they had begun to look a bit suspicious.  
  
"Look, I didn't say that," Aragorn said hastily. "All I said was that you could be perceived, by some, as weak."  
  
Legolas looked ready to attack, possibly to prove that he could beat Aragorn unconscious without any effort at all, but Gimli stepped in at just the right moment.  
  
"Legolas, laddie, it's so good to see you!"  
  
"I'm two and a half thousand years older than you, stop calling me 'laddie'!" Legolas was not a happy Elf today. His calm afternoon tea had been interrupted by Aragorn and his friends getting back from the hunt and getting drunk in the drawing room, which they had then trashed. Some of the comments about Legolas' looks by Aragorn's friends had led to the current argument; especially those ones that assumed he was female. When he discovered that this was because Aragorn had told them he was female his mood had not been brightened.  
  
"Can we tell them now? Can we tell them now?" Yet another distraction was caused by Pippin bouncing up and down on his bar stool, narrowly avoiding falling off.  
  
"Yes, we can," said Merry importantly, taking his pipe from his pocket, lighting it and then trying to strike a dignified pose. "My dear friends, I am happy to announce that Pippin and I have finally found a job we can do!"  
  
"Chimney sweep?"  
  
"Pickpocket?"  
  
"Working down the mines? For a very long time?" Aragorn sounded almost hopeful; Legolas hit him.  
  
"No," said Merry, his dignity wavering slightly. "Pippin and I are going to set up a detective agency."  
  
The announcement was met with a great silence, even Gollum failing to take advantage of everyone's distraction to sample some more ale. The Fellowship exchanged glances: how could they react to such news? How long would it be before one of them started laughing and Pippin attacked their knees?  
  
"We've even got a name!" Pippin said cheerfully. "We were really stumped, then Ah thought of it!"  
  
"Yes, and I am happy to say that our dear friend Sam inspired it," said Merry.  
  
"Me? How?" Sam looked scared.  
  
"Are you calling it 'stupid, FAT Hobbits'?" Gollum suggested. "We thinks that's a good idea, stupid FAT Hobbit!"  
  
"No," said Pippin, "we're calling it 'Trust a Brandybuck and a Took'. Sam said he can trust us, so everyone else can too."  
  
"You did know I was being sarcastic, right?" Sam couldn't stop himself; being called fat on a regular basis tended to affect his thought processes.  
  
"You were?" Merry looked shocked.  
  
"What? Ah've thought you were being sincere for six thousand years, you could've told me!"  
  
"Well, I didn't know you'd be using it for the name of a detective agency!" Sam snapped.  
  
"Look, you can change the name, right?" Frodo, ever the peacemaker, stepped in.  
  
"No we can't! Ah've all ready got business cards and a plaque for the house done! Ah'm docking those from your wages Sam!"  
  
"Well, when I said I was being sarcastic - Mr Frodo, reason with them. For me, please?"  
  
"Stupid FAT Hobbit!" Gollum added his quota. "Can't trust nasty stupid FAT Hobbitses."  
  
It had been a shock to everyone when Gollum had come back. No one was very sure how this had happened; and Elrond, when questioned, had merely shrugged and said that maybe he had somehow survived in a way many would never know, and then gone off to track down that pesky guy who had been plaguing him with messages signed simply 'Mr Anderson'. That this explanation helped no one had probably occurred to Elrond, but he was past caring, especially about things involving Aragorn in anyway whatsoever.  
  
It had been another shock when Pippin inherited a country estate from an elderly woman whose husband had died, leaving everything to her. She had been rather taken with "the funny short Scotsman who does my drains" and had left everything to him. Pippin had promptly employed Frodo as his housekeeper, Sam as his gardener and then sat down to see how much he could spend on food.  
  
Merry, meanwhile, being very much the brains of the Hobbits, had tried to become a romantic poet. His poetry was awful, but Coleridge had introduced him to Opium, which he rather liked. He had become convinced that the images he saw whilst under the influence would help him to solve crimes; they were obviously premonitions. Despite all of Legolas' protests that this simply wasn't possible, Merry continued to believe it; after all, Legolas was blond, what did he know?  
  
As it turned out, Legolas knew a lot. Finding that his main hobbies -archery and killing Orcs - were fast dying out, he had decided that he really ought to use his Elven intellect to help his fellow man. His understanding of divorce proceedings, for example, had come in very handy to Aragorn, although if Legolas had really thought about things he would have realised that this would then lead to Aragorn needing a place to stay and a shoulder to cry on (he had just lost his house, after all) . Whilst he liked Aragorn and they had been having an on-off relationship - usually off when Aragorn did something stupid like falling off a cliff - since the time of the Fellowship, Legolas hadn't really been sure he'd wanted a man in his house. Especially a man who had adopted all the ideas of 'hunting as sport'; Legolas refused to stay in the house during hunting season, preferring to go and stay with Gimli. The Dwarf may have lived in a hovel and he may have been involved in more dodgy deals than Bill Sykes, but at least he didn't kill animals for fun; the rats he killed were purely for food.  
  
Gandalf lived in Galadriel's Legs. He had decided on this for a pub name after going through all those that could be associated with him and turning them down as not rude enough. It was also a good way to get back at Galadriel, who had royally screwed him over in the seventeenth century when she told him that it was perfectly OK to open a baker's shop in Pudding Lane. The result had been the Great Fire of London, from which Gandalf had emerged minus Staff, money and, most importantly to him, eyebrows. Since then he had vowed vengeance on Galadriel, and was rather happy to hear that she was working as a second grade clairvoyant under the name Madam Gala of Lothlorien.  
  
That he had employed Gollum surprised a number of people, as Gollum was schizophrenic, alcoholic and a manic depressive. He was also prone to sitting on the bar for hours turning a coin over in his hands and commenting on how bright it was and to scaring off some customers by telling them that if they didn't drink up and get out he was going to poke their eyes out. In Gandalf's view, a barman that everyone was terrified of worked fine, because he could always get rid of everyone at closing time (except for the hardier drunks who knew that Gollum could be distracted with any type of gold ring) and Gollum didn't want wages, only a place to live. His current home was Gandalf's cellar.  
  
Still, Sam wasn't happy about Gollum being there.  
  
"Mr Frodo, you said you were going to stop him calling me fat!"  
  
"Smeagol, stop calling Sam fat."  
  
"But he is fat Master!"  
  
"That's no reason to say it!"  
  
"So you think I'm fat too, Mr Frodo?" Sam looked hurt.  
  
"Not fat, Sam, cuddly. You know I like cuddling you Sam - "  
  
"Too much information!" Aragorn cut in.  
  
"You're one to talk," Pippin muttered, shooting a look at Legolas.  
  
Aragorn at least had the decency to look ashamed, though Pippin still felt that putting the bar between him and Legolas was a smart idea.  
  
"Fool of a Took, don't think I don't know what you're doing!" Gandalf said. "No free alcohol for you."  
  
"Only free alcohol for us!" said Gollum happily.  
  
The doors suddenly flew open, letting in tendrils of fog. A figure was illuminated by the lamplight outside, a great and terrible figure with arms outstretched and a general air of 'insane female Viking' about it.  
  
"Murder!" the figure cried, stumbling dramatically into the room, "murder! There has been blood spilt this night!"  
  
"You said that when you thought Arwen had been murdered and it turned out she'd just tripped over her dress and fallen in a puddle," Gandalf said disdainfully.  
  
"But this time there is murder! Murder I tell you! And a great wish on my part for a gin and tonic, so hurry it up!"  
  
After she'd been served with a gin and tonic (by Gimli, who still fancied Galadriel, even with her insanity) the Fellowship gathered round.  
  
"Well.," Legolas prompted.  
  
"Well what?" Galadriel asked.  
  
"Who's been murdered?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You came in saying there'd been a murder! If you were just using that for dramatic effect and to get a free drink then you really have sunk very low."  
  
"Says the guy who's sleeping with Aragorn."  
  
"That's insulting Arwen too you know!"  
  
"So it is. Speaking of family, the murdered victim is," she paused for emphasis, which was somewhat ruined as she took another sip of her drink, "Celeborn!"  
  
"Your husband?" Pippin asked. He never could tell those blond Elves apart, except for Legolas, but that was only because he saw him everyday.  
  
"Yes," said Galadriel.  
  
"Shouldn't you be a bit more upset?" Sam said.  
  
"Why? Haven't spoken to the bastard for a couple of centuries," said Galadriel. "Anyway, it's his fault for wondering around the East End of London at night on his own."  
  
"Why was he doing that?" Frodo, the innocent, asked.  
  
"He was looking for someone."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Damned if I know, don't think even he bothers learning names," said Galadriel. "He just takes the money, names aren't important."  
  
"Wait? You're telling us that Celeborn is a rent boy?" Aragorn hollered.  
  
"Oh yes, when I chucked him and Haldir out there wasn't much else they could do," said Galadriel, looking a bit smug. "And it's not like they went into the job unskilled, if you know what I mean."  
  
"No, what do you mean?" Frodo asked.  
  
"I'll explain later, Mr Frodo," said Sam. "But she basically means that you have similar skills."  
  
"I do?"  
  
"Yes, and may I take this opportunity to say that you're very good."  
  
"Too much information!" Aragorn snapped. He, unlike that pervert Boromir, was not interested in Hobbits or their private lives.  
  
"Wait, do you knoo what Ah've jus' realised?" Pippin said. "This is a job for Trust a Brandybuck and a Took!"  
  
They had their first case.  
  
------  
  
Having been given his first case, Merry went about solving it in the only way he knew how: getting high. Soon he was sitting in his favourite armchair watching some pigs fly round the room, marveling at the way they avoided the great stack of food Pippin had before him.  
  
"So Merry," Pippin asked between mouthfuls, "have you seen a premonition yet? Do you know who killed Celeborn?"  
  
"I am getting closer to the truth," Merry said, as a duck waddled into the room then jumped onto Pippin's head. "It is all slowly becoming clearer."  
  
"I'm glad to hear it," Frodo said as he wheeled the tea trolley in. Several frogs were sitting on top of it, singing something that, to Merry, sounded like 'bom bom bom, bom bom bom'. "Now Merry, you know you shouldn't get high on an empty stomach, so I've made you some nice tea and cake."  
  
"Don't want cake," said Merry. "Someone has been murdered, I must sacrifice my own privileges to solve the crime!"  
  
"Oh, go on," said Frodo, holding up a plate of cakes (Merry ignored the frog, which was now tap dancing). "Go on, Merry, go on."  
  
"No, really, I'm fine."  
  
"Go on."  
  
"No."  
  
"Go on. Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on!"  
  
"No, really!"  
  
"It's strawberry icing."  
  
"Oh, well maybe one cake then."  
  
He reached out for a cake but Frodo jerked the plate away; the frog fell off.  
  
"No, I don't want to feel like I was forcing you," Frodo said.  
  
"No, you're not! I want a cake!"  
  
"No, it's not right for me to put pressure on you like that, I'll just go back to the kitchen and destroy these cakes. They nearly made me do a terrible thing, and I have to be careful. I nearly killed Sam once, did you know?"  
  
"Yes, Frodo, we know. You've told us before."  
  
Frodo suddenly clutched the plate to his chest, sending the cakes flying.  
  
"I nearly killed my Sam!"  
  
And he tore from the room, close to tears.  
  
"Say, Merry, it's a bloody good thing we avoided the kind of friendship Frodo and Sam have, isn't it?" Pippin the unobservant called.  
  
"Indeed it is, Pippin," said Merry. The frogs were now doing a full dance routine; it was rather fun to watch.  
  
-----  
  
Elsewhere, Legolas and Aragorn were walking back to the hotel they were using. They had separate rooms, but such things did not affect an ex-Ranger and an Elf. They were walking in silence, Legolas because he was thinking about Celeborn's death and Aragorn because he didn't want to make Legolas so angry that he refused to let him in his room.  
  
They were nearly back at the hotel when a strange man, who looked like a cross between a farmer and a hippie who'd just taken some fairly hardcore drugs, approached them, waving a newspaper. He did not, however, seem primarily interested in selling newspapers.  
  
"Good day, fine sirs," he said, skipping along beside them. "You may remember me from such places as the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs, for I am Tom Bombadil."  
  
"You're selling newspapers?" Legolas said. He didn't like Tom Bombadil much, anyone that crazy shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a forest, in his opinion.  
  
"Yes, well, I have to, don't'cha know?" Tom said. "Goldenberry made me. Said she was fed up with having nothing to do all day but sit around with her feet in buckets of water and she wanted to go places and see sights and things like that. We need money for this, so here I am selling newspapers."  
  
"We don't need a newspaper, sorry," Aragorn said.  
  
"But there's story about a murder, someone you know!"  
  
"Celeborn, we know, we heard," Legolas said, giving Aragorn the internationally recognised look of 'let's just get the hell out of here before he decides he wants to either start singing or talking about old times'.  
  
"Not Celeborn, another one," said Tom, "Haldir was killed."  
  
"WHAT?" Legolas yelled, snatching a paper from Tom's hands.  
  
"I knew it! I knew you fancied him!" Aragorn roared.  
  
"You're the one who bloody hugged him at Helm's Deep! And who was it who saved his life? YOU!"  
  
"I was just happy to see him is all," Aragorn said sulkily.  
  
"You didn't hug me! You came back from the dead and do you hug me, nooooo!"  
  
"Oh, not this again! I could hardly hug you in public, you know."  
  
"You hugged Gimli! And you let Eowyn throw herself at you after the battle, but do you hug me? Nooo. And then you had a go at me when I was the only one speaking sense."  
  
"What sense?"  
  
"Three hundred against ten thousand are impossible odds, everyone knows that!"  
  
"We won!"  
  
"Shut up, OK, just shut up! I don't want this argument again, it was bad enough when you got going at Agincourt!"  
  
During this argument, Tom had decided that the best place to be was somewhere else. As had everyone else walking down the street. The blond man was looking quite dangerous, best to keep a safe distance.  
  
"We should do something about this though," Legolas said, reading the article about Haldir's murder. "Merry and Pippin aren't likely to leave the house for a few days, let alone solve a crime."  
  
"Well.I have an idea."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're very pretty Legolas."  
  
"Stop changing the subject! Flattery will get you nowhere at the moment you pervy Dwarf tosser!"  
  
"No, I just meant, well, this person's killing rent boys and."  
  
"Oh no, no! I refuse to do that!"  
  
"Haldir did!"  
  
"He had no other choice. No, I am going back to my hotel and I am going to have nothing more to do with you for - for - until I decide, got that?"  
  
"But more people will die."  
  
Aragorn knew just how to get round Legolas. Appeal to his sense of justice and you could make him do anything, as Aragorn knew from experience.  
  
"Fine, fine, if that's the way things are," Legolas sighed. "What must I do?"  
  
-----  
  
The door to Merry's study flew open and Galadriel flitted in like some stoned banshee.  
  
"Murder! Murder! Mur - oh, bugger it, they're not here."  
  
She shut the door and went down the hall to the living room. She threw this door open with such force that it rebounded off the wall and slammed into her face. Not the desired effect but it did make Pippin choke on his seventh crumpet.  
  
"Murder!" Galadriel cried as well as she could with a broken nose. "Murder!"  
  
"Wait, wait, I know! The murdered victim is," he squeezed his eyes closed and put his hands to his temples. "Don't tell me, I do know this one. It's.Arwen!"  
  
"No."  
  
"Damn!"  
  
"Though she is working as a prozzie," said Pippin. "I saw her down the docks the other night."  
  
"What were you doing at the docks the other night?"  
  
"Looking for a prostitute, what do you think?"  
  
Galadriel cleared her throat meaningfully.  
  
"Oh, sorry, Galadriel, who's been murdered?"  
  
"Haldir," she said. "He was cut to ribbons by an unknown force. It clouds my vision, but I suspect it is evil!"  
  
"Yep, yep, that explains why I haven't been able to see stuff clearly," said Merry. "Galadriel, did you know you've got a squirrel in your hair?"  
  
"I do not have a squirrel in my hair!"  
  
"Sorry, must be just me then," said Merry.  
  
"Or maybe it's the way you've styled it," said Pippin helpfully.  
  
"I tire of your conversation," said Galadriel. "I shall go into the West End and therefore remain Galadriel and not go crazy because of contact with you."  
  
She swept out majestically.  
  
"You know, Pip," said Merry, "I think a second murder calls for more Opium."  
  
-----  
  
Legolas was not happy. He had been forced to stand on a street corner and try and entice the murderer to him. It wouldn't normally have been too difficult to attract men, and he had actually had thirty-four offers so far; the only problem was Aragorn, who kept scaring people off. Men tended to get a bit put off when a Rasputin lookalike burst out of some nearby dustbins and told them to get their filthy eyes off his boyfriend.  
  
The thirty-fifth time this happened, Legolas decided to have words.  
  
"You're scaring them all away!"  
  
"I don't like them looking at you like that!"  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Like they want to sleep with you!"  
  
"That's the bloody point! And need I remind you that you are the one who suggested this in the first place?"  
  
"Fine, fine, I won't interfere with the next one."  
  
"Good, cos I - ," Legolas stopped. His Elven senses could pick up not just when Orcs were approaching, but when someone was eyeing him up. He looked across the street at a tall dark-haired man in a suit.  
  
"Looking for someone?" Legolas called. The man hurried off.  
  
"Who's scaring them away now?"  
  
"He's just in denial, no skin off my nose," said Legolas. "Go buy me some cigarettes."  
  
"You don't smoke!"  
  
"It looks better."  
  
"But - "  
  
"Go buy me some cigarettes!"  
  
"Going, going." Aragorn scuttled off in his best Fagin-like walk. Legolas waited till he was out of sight then slipped into an alley and headed for another part of the city. If you wanted something done right, don't get humans involved.  
  
-----  
  
Aragorn eventually found a shop where he could buy cigarettes. He'd found one right away, but they hadn't let him in. He decided that telling him he was the King of Gondor would only get him locked up, so left it and went looking for a cheaper shop down the road.  
  
"My god, you look awful! I'm so happy to see it!"  
  
He didn't even need to turn round to recognise the speaker. His Ranger sense and his general survival instinct were telling him to run, but his legs just wouldn't move.  
  
"What's this?" Arwen drooled. "A pimp, caught off his guard?"  
  
"Good grief Arwen, of all the crappy things you could possibly have said!" Aragorn said, whirling round. He took a good look at Arwen. "And you said I looked awful?"  
  
"It's not my fault," Arwen spat, clenching her fists. "Daddy cut me off! Said I was stupid to trust a human and he'd have to teach me a lesson."  
  
"By making you penniless?"  
  
"Yes, he's a right bastard, isn't he? All that stuff with the Ring was his fault, you know, though he'll never admit it. Still, I always said, if he'd just taken it from Isildur and thrown it into the fire, I need never have bloody well met you!"  
  
"Yes, well I can't say that I was entirely happy about being forced into a marriage with an uptight, neurotic, penny-pinching Elf either."  
  
"How dare you? I was never anything but a loving wife to you! You were the one chasing after Legolas, hoping I didn't notice!" She took in Aragorn's surprised expression. "Oh yes, I knew all about that. I've got Ranger skills of my own - it's called woman's intuition!"  
  
Aragorn decided the best course of action would simply be to walk away, quickly. Arwen had the kind of look in her eyes that he recognised all too well - the 'I'm going to do something psychotic in precisely three seconds' look.  
  
"And now look at me!" Arwen walked after him, undeterred. "I've been reduced to working as a Lady of the Night, walking the perilous streets of London looking for men to sample my forbidden fruits. Do you have any idea how demeaning this is?"  
  
"About as demeaning as you running after me wailing about your problems." Aragon muttered under his breath, receiving a painful blow from Arwen whose current problems obviously hadn't affected her keen Elven hearing.  
  
"You could at least show some sympathy!"  
  
"You're right," Aragorn said, more in an attempt to get her to go away then out of any kind of human decency. "I'm truly sorry that you've ended up this way. When we fall, we really fall hard, huh?"  
  
"Tell me about it." Arwen grabbed one of Aragorn's cigarettes from the packet and lighted up skilfully. "I can't even get any business. Men just don't seem to find me attractive anymore."  
  
Aragorn wondered if that had more to do with the copious amounts of powdered make-up she was wearing nowadays, which made her look like a circus clown gone wrong, then any kind of fading in her looks. Whilst wondering how to articulate this without Arwen doing some kind of permanent injury to his manhood, he noticed with concern that she was now looking at him in a way which might have been seductive, but more closely resembled that of a dying goldfish.  
  
"What about you, Aragorn?" She purred. "Do you find me attractive?"  
  
They were getting onto dangerous ground, he could tell. "Um, theoretically."  
  
"How would you like some casual sex? For a price." She looked at his ragged clothes disdainfully. "A small price."  
  
"No, that's really quite alright." Aragorn was practically running now. Arwen walked beside him easefully.  
  
"No strings attached. it'll be like we don't even know each other!"  
  
"How about you just take the money?" Aragorn yelped. Chucking all the coins he had at her, he broke into a sprint and disappeared round the corner. Arwen chuckled as she counted the money. It worked every time.  
  
----  
  
Legolas lent seductively against the street corner, wondering how long he would have to wait until the murderer revealed himself. Without Aragorn's interference, he'd had no shortage of men approaching him, but he'd declined them all as he was ninety percent certain that someone capable of killing two deadly Elves (okay, one deadly Elf, and one useless Elf who had been entrusted to such banal tasks as picking out curtains whilst Galadriel had been off ruling Lothlorien) would not be a short, fat, balding man as the majority of his potential customers had invariably been. No, it had to be someone tall, dark, suspicious looking.  
  
Right at that moment a tall, dark suspicious looking bloke approached him wearing a long brown cape that simply screamed 'Ringwraith on a laundry day'. His face was cloaked in shadow. He couldn't have had more of a murderous vibe about him if he was wielding a ten inch axe and screaming 'Death to rent boys'.  
  
"I've been. looking for someone." He rasped.  
  
"Is that so?" Legolas said. "Well, looks like you've found me. Your place or mine?"  
  
"Yours. Mine is, uh, under renovation."  
  
"Oh, I see," Legolas nodded understandingly, wondering if the man suffered from a permanent sore throat as a result of speaking in such an obviously unnatural manner. He led the way, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the cloaked figure occasionally let flash a shiny, sharp looking object from under his cape. As far as subtlety went, this guy wouldn't even make it to first base.  
  
----  
  
"Right," Legolas declared when they had got back to the hotel room, "do you want to shag first, or would you rather just get to the whole trying to kill me thing?"  
  
"Excuse me?" The figure coughed uncomfortably.  
  
"Look, Jack. can I call you Jack? I think it's pretty obvious to all involved that you're here to murder me. People don't just walk around in long dark capes concealing deadly weapons underneath simply to partake in the customary shagging. Now reveal yourself so I can start kicking your arse."  
  
"My name is not Jack." The man turned around so he wasn't facing Legolas, and drew his hood down slowly to reveal a mop of greasy hair even worse than Aragorn's on a particularly bad day. Then he spun around dramatically - tripping on his robes on the way - to reveal a face even more unattractive than Legolas had remembered it. "It is I. Boromir!"  
  
"Oh, for the love of." Legolas sighed with annoyance. "Boromir?! What is it with you dead people? Why can't you bloody well just stay dead?"  
  
"I have been called back to finish what I never started," Boromir told him ominously.  
  
"Killing rent boys?"  
  
"Killing Elves! Male Elves!" He laughed demonically, and Legolas was horrified to notice that parts of his chin were peeling off. In fact, when he looked closer (no easy task, by anyone's standards), he realised that his whole face was actually starting to resemble a mistreated sponge.  
  
"Are you.You are dead, right, Boromir? Because you really aren't looking like that proud warrior of Gondor I so hatefully remember."  
  
"It was the strangest thing, actually. One day I just woke up in a boat washed up on a shore unfamiliar to my eyes with no recollection of who I was and why I was there. I realised then I only had one sole purpose; to kill all male Elves that I came across."  
  
"Well, that's clearly quite ridiculous. You must have remembered who you were because you just told me your name."  
  
"Well, um, I remembered certain things."  
  
"Like.?"  
  
"My name."  
  
"We've established that."  
  
"How I had died."  
  
"Killed by Orcs after you stupidly tried to take the One Ring."  
  
"Protecting Merry and Pippin, actually!"  
  
"You mean compensating for being such a poor excuse for a human!"  
  
"Poor excuse for a human?! Aragorn was a poor excuse for a human! I was always the under appreciated one."  
  
"No, you were always the idiotic one. 'Let me use the ring, just for a minute. it will be our little secret, Frodo. Nobody will know.' " Legolas took in Boromir's stupefied look. "Yeah, I'm a light sleeper, and you're a loud talker. You do the math."  
  
"I tire of this!" Boromir said quickly to change the subject which had grown a little too uncomfortable for his taste. "I mean to kill you!"  
  
"Oh, I'd like to see you try." Legolas drew out his twin blades quicker than Aragorn could dodge having a bath. "But first, why don't you say hello to two little friends of mine?"  
  
"You're armed?!"  
  
"Of course I'm armed. It would be pretty stupid for me to go undercover on a murder case without carrying some kind of protection on me. Because whatever Aragorn might tell you, I am not weak and helpless!"  
  
"Oh dear, are you still at it?"  
  
"At what?"  
  
"You know. it."  
  
"Yes, and we're very happy, thank you very much."  
  
"Sounds like it." Boromir sneered. "Does he still insist on going on top?"  
  
"That, that." Legolas stammered, appalled at the cheek of the man. "That is neither here nor there."  
  
"I bet it isn't," Boromir said sarcastically as he eyed the well-used bed on the other side of the room. "Do you do it in his room, then?"  
  
"Prepare to die, Son of Gondor!" Legolas spun his knives round in his hands for effect, then thought of a great way to finish off the sentence. "Again!"  
  
"Wait, wait a minute." Boromir held up a decaying hand before Legolas had a chance to get to him. "Don't you want to know why I'm killing all male Elves?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know. Because even you aren't coward enough to try and kill all male Hobbits?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Dwarves not up to your pervy tastes?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Well.?"  
  
"Because you rejected me, you son of a."  
  
"Whoa, wait a second! When did this alleged rejection take place? Because I pride myself on having a pretty good memory, and I certainly don't remember that."  
  
"In the Mines of Moria. I said, 'Nice weather we've been having recently."  
  
"Yes, and I said 'We're down the bottom of a mine, you idiot.' What's that got to do with anything?"  
  
"I was making small talk! That's how humans start the courting process."  
  
"You do?!" Legolas said incredulously. "Well that's not what Aragorn did. He just said 'You, me, up a tree, now'."  
  
"You mean you didn't realise I was telling you I loved you?"  
  
"By talking to me about the weather? Boromir, I'm pretty smart as far as Elves go, but even I'm not educated in human small talk."  
  
"Oh." It suddenly dawned on Boromir exactly what this meant. "So you didn't reject me!"  
  
"No."  
  
"So you loved me too?"  
  
"No."  
  
"But." Boromir was confused. Again. "You just said."  
  
"Look, Boromir, if you had actually spoken in a language I might have recognised, and told me in the usual way that you loved me, I would have still have called you an idiot, because, well, I'm sorry to say it, but you are. Not to mention the fact that you were chatting up the Hobbits at every opportunity you got. In fact, I had you down as fancying Pippin."  
  
"Well, I did, but that's not the point."  
  
"Oh, on the contrary, I think it's a particularly relevant point!"  
  
"I fancied you more!"  
  
"No you didn't, you just wanted to piss off Aragorn."  
  
"Agghh, what is it with you Elves and your all encompassing knowledge?!" Boromir was actually beginning to look somewhat fierce, but combined with the face peeling it came across as somewhat ridiculous.  
  
"You haven't spoken to Galadriel for a while."  
  
"I haven't had anything to do with Galadriel!"  
  
"You killed her hus - ex-husband, I think that establishes a connection."  
  
Boromir was getting fed up with this; his brain hadn't been used to working at this speed when he was alive, now he was dead it was even more difficult.  
  
"Look, are we going to shag?"  
  
"I think not."  
  
"Then I'll just kill you."  
  
"Like I haven't heard that before. God, do you know how many times someone's tried to kill me?"  
  
"How many?"  
  
"Not counting battles, ambushes and bar fights - which, incidentally, were all Aragorn's fault - one thousand, two hundred and twenty-three."  
  
"Well, you'll be unlucky on the one thousand two hundred and twenty-fifth time."  
  
"Fourth you idiot! Why did Elrond let you join the Fellowship in the first place? I heard you were confused about the whole 'Nine Walkers' thing because you counted us up and only got eight."  
  
"There were only eight!"  
  
"Did you count yourself?"  
  
"Oh yeah."  
  
"Was it a family thing though? Because I'm sure Faramir had difficulty remembering just how many rings made up Isildur's Bane. And your dad can't have been much help to him."  
  
Legolas knew he'd gone too far, mainly because he'd done it on purpose. It was all very well to go in for the 'insult everything you possibly can about your opponent before the fight' routine, but with Boromir it was insultingly easy. He hung out with Pippin, he didn't need to lower himself any further.  
  
Therefore, Legolas was completely prepared when Boromir lunged at him, waving a foot-long knife. Boromir, however, was not prepared for Legolas to move out of the way, though this is the sensible thing to do when someone is attacking you with a foot-long knife. Boromir fell face forward onto the bed, the knife buried in the mattress. This was the least of his problems, as Legolas, who really didn't feel like a long fight, went straight for decapitation.  
  
He was a little put out when Boromir's head reattached itself.  
  
"What the f-?" he began, shock getting the better of him for once. His momentary distraction gave Boromir the perfect opportunity to grab him and drag him onto the bed as well. "Oh shit!"  
  
"I regenerate, do Elves regenerate?"  
  
"Where did you learn a word like 'regenerate'?" Legolas' shock was getting bigger. Boromir had evidently swallowed a dictionary, as he sure as hell couldn't read one.  
  
"You know, I was going to let you live, but now I think I'll just kill you."  
  
"I decapitated you and you were still going to let me live?"  
  
It was, of course, the perfect moment for Aragorn to walk in. It had taken him half an hour to shake off Arwen, and he'd then spent another hour walking around looking for Legolas. Finally, he'd got so fed up that he'd decided to go back to the hotel and get drunk. He was also so fed up that he went for 'dramatic kingly entrance', which in this case meant knocking the door off its hinges with one punch.  
  
Legolas, half squashed by Boromir and almost unconscious because of the smell, craned his neck and wondered, for a second, just why he had to deal with Men like this.  
  
"You've got a bloody key! How many times do I have to explain the concept of keys to you?"  
  
"Would you quit - WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? WHO THE HELL IS THAT?"  
  
"Why, Ranger, we meet again," Boromir turned round. He was a disgusting sight, especially as he now had a neat, Frankenstein-esque line round his neck, but it was a sign of just how angry Aragorn was that he countered well.  
  
"I wasn't called Ranger, I was called Strider. Also Aragorn, Wingfoot, Estel, Agamemnon, Arthur, Henry."  
  
"And all I got was 'Greenleaf', which is what 'Legolas' means!"  
  
"Shut up, I demand explanations!"  
  
"For what?"  
  
"Why are you in bed with Boromir?"  
  
"Shouldn't you be more interested in what Boromir is doing here?"  
  
"You?"  
  
"No! Remember, he died, we put him in the boat, sent him over the falls, sang a lament - in which you stole Gimli's verse - and then went on to meet his brother, who told us he'd seen his body in a boat floating down a river, because we'd put him in the boat, sent him over the falls - is this ringing any bells Aragorn?"  
  
"Well, why is here?"  
  
"Excellent question, why didn't I think of that?" Legolas lay back, staring at the ceiling. Next year he was going to spend a holiday in Mirkwood (the New Forest, for those interested) and he'd be with Elves and only Elves for a while. He'd be with his father too, but he was happy if you gave him a bottle of brandy once a day.  
  
"I am here to kill Legolas! And then you!" Boromir said dramatically, with a dramatic gesture. Which would have worked had his hand not fallen off.  
  
"You're falling to pieces, how are you going to kill me?" Aragorn asked. He'd left his sword at home. Damn.  
  
"Legolas has weapons, I'll use those!"  
  
"You bloody will not!"  
  
"You have weapons, Legolas?"  
  
"You don't? Marvelous, there's that kingly forward planning you're so well known for! 'There's a big army heading our way, what should we do?' 'Er, run?'"  
  
"If we get out of this alive, we are going to have words!"  
  
"If we get out of this alive, I will not be speaking to you for a week!"  
  
"What did I do?"  
  
"You want a list? Dating how far back?"  
  
Boromir was feeling left out, so he decided to lunge at Aragorn, as he was most distracted and unarmed. He did so with a roar that made Aragorn scream like a girl whilst Legolas, calmly, threw a knife at Boromir, got him in the leg and sent him tumbling into the grate, where a helpful parlour maid had lit a fire earlier that day.  
  
"Will it kill him?" Aragorn asked.  
  
"I don't know, get my bloody blade back!"  
  
It did, fortunately, kill Boromir, whose spirit rushed up the chimney with an eldritch scream that sounded a lot like 'bastards'.  
  
"Should we sing a lament?" Aragorn asked.  
  
"No."  
  
"But we always sing laments."  
  
"You didn't when you thought I'd fallen at the Battle of Agincourt! You're standing there, looking down at my body, and I distinctly remember hearing you say 'go on Pippin, take his boots off, they should just fit me'."  
  
"How could you hear if you were dead?"  
  
"I wasn't dead! I was unconscious! Thank God Frodo knew the difference or I'd've been buried alive!"  
  
"Oh," Aragorn seemed to be doing some deep thinking. Then, "well, since we've killed the bad guy, what say you and I -?"  
  
"No."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I said 'no'. Go on, get out."  
  
"Can't I even sleep in the same bed?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"The same room?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"But I heard downstairs, they had to turn someone away because they're full up! No more rooms!"  
  
"Then you can sleep in the corridor, go on, get out!"  
  
"I'm King of Gondor! And England! On three separate occasions!"  
  
"I'm an Elf."  
  
"Damn. Guess I'll go sleep in the corridor then."  
  
"Guess you will."  
  
Aragorn spent the night in the corridor, eagerly awaiting the time when Legolas, realising the error of his ways, would open the door and invite him in. Legolas, apparently, did not see any error in his ways, as he never let Aragorn back in and snuck past him in the early morning when Aragorn eventually fell asleep.  
  
Still, Aragorn could last a week. He hoped.  
  
----  
  
"I've got it! By George, I think I've got it."  
  
"That's excellent Merry. Got what?"  
  
"The answer. I've solved the case."  
  
"Oh. What case?"  
  
"The murder case!"  
  
"Oh, right."  
  
Merry gave up on Pippin and went down to the kitchens. He remembered to knock on the door this time, and not to enter until the scufflings and frantic whispers had died out.  
  
"Hello, Merry, Sam here was just er - just er - why were you here again Sam?" Frodo tried to look innocent.  
  
"Just bringing in some vegetables from the garden, Mr Frodo. I'll bring some more later."  
  
"Thank you Sam!"  
  
Sam left, quickly.  
  
"I've solved the case Frodo!"  
  
"Well done Merry. Who was it?"  
  
"Gollum."  
  
"Oh, not you too. You know, Sam blamed Gollum for everything! 'Who ate our provisions?' 'Who killed those rabbits and tried to eat them raw?' 'Who tried to get us killed by a giant spider?' It wasn't his fault, Merry."  
  
"I thought the Shelob thing was!"  
  
"Misunderstanding!"  
  
"How? He led you down there?"  
  
"It was the only way into Mordor!"  
  
"You could've flown!"  
  
"How?"  
  
"One of those giant eagles Gandalf was always using."  
  
"Don't be ridiculous Merry!"  
  
"I'm not I - oh, morning Legolas."  
  
"Morning. I wouldn't ask this under normal circumstances, but can I spend a few days here?"  
  
"Sure. Guess what? I solved the case."  
  
"You did? So you just weren't in time to stop Boromir killing me?"  
  
"Boromir?"  
  
Merry's speech was followed by a thundering crash which was not, in fact, thunder but Frodo trying to get all the frying pans out of a cupboard at once so he could hide in there.  
  
"Are you sure?" Merry looked crestfallen.  
  
"He came at me with a big knife and admitted to murdering Haldir and Celeborn. I'd go with yes."  
  
"Oh.well, I'm sure we'll have better luck on our next case!" He paused for dramatic emphasis, and then said something that Legolas realise he'd be hearing on far too regular a basis: "Because you can trust a Brandybuck and a Took!" 


End file.
